9. Research Proposal

“A research proposal is a concise and coherent summary of your proposed research. It sets out the central issues or questions that you intend to address. It outlines the general area of study within which your research falls, referring to the current state of knowledge and any recent debates on the topic. It also demonstrates the originality of your proposed research.”

The proposal is one of the significant document that is needed during the application process. It can demonstrate your potential for graduate-level research while representing the capacity to communicate complex ideas clearly, concisely and critically.

The Necessity of a Research Proposal

A research proposal is a document needed to suggest and present your research project you are expecting to continue with already connected supervisor/ any professor with similar research interest. Only some universities recommend contacting potential supervisors with a research proposal. But in my case, I had to make research proposals only after those professors agreed to be my supervisor and guided me to apply (except one PhD application I made to a university in New Zealand). Otherwise, it may be time-consuming to make research proposals for all the supervisors whom I sent first emails. 

As in my experience, most universities require research proposals at the stage you are applying. However, it is always recommended to go through the admission requirements of the university in advance.

There may be various methods to make a research proposal, but I made it according to the current research work of my supervisors. I have selected one or a few research papers of supervisors and referred literature related to that area. Then, I found a gap in that area to do some future research. After that, I prepared my research proposals which were usually 2-3 pages long (about 700-1000 words).

In some universities, you can make your PhD application without prior contact of potential supervisors. After submitting your application, it is shared among the staff members in the respective department and then supervisors will check your research interests and research proposal. In that scenario, a research proposal can contribute to match your research interest with an appropriate supervisor. That means the proposal you make according to some of your research idea/interests will be checked for the compatibility of research areas of supervisors in the respective university.

So, as in my experiences and things I have seen, the method for making a research proposal can be categorized into 3 as in the following chart. Thus, depending on the admission requirements and your preferences, you should decide which method is to be considered during the preparation of the research proposal.

As I mentioned earlier, I prepared each of my research proposals according to the current research work conducted in my supervisor’s labs as in Method 1 in the above chart. However, only for one university which is in New Zealand has no mandatory requirement of prior contact with a research supervisor. Hence, for that university I followed Method 3 mentioned in the chart and after submitting my application, two professors contacted me for interviews and later agreed to be my supervisors.

1. First, I checked the guidelines of making research proposals (if there are any) in the respective university website.
2. I searched for recent (within 2-3 years of time from the present) research publications of supervisors and read abstracts of each paper.
3. Then, I selected one/few papers I mostly preferred.
4. After selecting, I read the completed paper/s and tried to find some research gap/ any clue for future research work mentioned in the paper/s.
5. I also obtained some related literature (at least 5-10 papers) and again tried to find some research gap/ any clue for future research work mentioned in the paper/s.
6. After finding some research gap/idea for future research work, then I started to write the proposal.

Writing a Research Proposal

Some universities have guidelines on their websites for making research proposals. Therefore, before preparing the research proposal, it is recommended to go through if there are such criteria.

My research proposals usually contained these sections; Title, Objective, Background, Methodology, Expected Outcomes, Resources Requirement and Availability, Conclusions and References. I did not add the timeline because my supervisors mentioned it was not needed at that stage.

Section	Details
Title	After finding the research gap/ problem, you can create the project title and it should clearly indicate what is your proposed research is about.
Objective	What is to be achieved from the proposed research?
Background	The reason behind the selection of the proposed research, providing context for your research by referring to the existing literature (brief literature review), addressing the research gap.
Methodology	An overview of the essential methods/ techniques you have to follow to conduct the research project. Probably, you can understand and find these appropriate methods from the literature review completed at the previous step.
Expected Outcomes	What is the impact and outcome of your proposed research work, how worthy it is? Sometimes, things mentioned in this section may be hypothetical because after conducting research your expected results may vary.
Resources Requirement & Availability	What are the significant resources, materials you need to conduct the proposed project? This is also can be done by referring to the previous literature and based on your existing knowledge.
Conclusions	Restating your research problem, summarizing its significance and how that research problem is to be addressed from your research work.
References	A list of references (5-10) you used during the preparation of the research proposal.

In some universities, they provide specific templates to be used by applicants for making their research proposals. Therefore, please check if there is such a condition in your university by going thoroughly on the admission section on the university website. If there is such a template, you may have to prepare your research proposal in that given format. 

* Please noted that quoted statements are obtained from some online resources.

* You can study some materials uploaded (which I have used as references) in the following drive for further understanding. 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17WnAcZQo0vuoixm3zZvTBbMky_9EbvVi?usp=sharing